News & Updates
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Streamlining Component Selection for Long Product Lifecycles
Electronic parts may now cycle from launch to end-of-life in just a few years, but many systems are expected to serve for 10–20+ years. Here’s how to build a component selection process that aligns engineering, procurement and design for longevity and stability.
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Using ECAD Software to Track Part Availability During PCB Design
As component lead-times extend and obsolescence becomes a persistent threat, PCB projects demand more than schematic capture and layout tools alone. This article details how ECAD software with embedded supply-chain intelligence can: unify engineering and procurement teams; provide visibility into stock levels, lead times and alternates; and enable proactive risk mitigation within the design loop.
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PCB Design Data Management Tips for Multi-Board Projects
In complex electronic systems, managing data from multiple printed circuit boards can quickly become a logistical challenge. This article outlines a structured workflow for handling both board-level and assembly-level design outputs, ensuring clarity and consistency across fabrication, assembly and product-level documentation.
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6 Areas Your PCB Design Reviews Should Focus On
Learn the six essential topics every electronics team should address in design reviews to improve quality, avoid surprises and bring products to market faster.
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What Is BOM Management? A Practical Guide to Avoiding Costly Part Mismatches
From design to production, effective Bill of Materials (BOM) management is critical to ensuring smooth collaboration between engineering, procurement, and manufacturing teams. In this practical guide, we break down proven strategies for structuring, maintaining, and synchronizing your BOM to prevent costly mistakes and accelerate time-to-market.
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Requirements Portal Introductory Tutorials
This series of guided demos shows how the Altium Requirements Portal transforms scattered requirement spreadsheets and emails into traceable, version-controlled data that stays aligned with your PCB design efforts.
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Bridging the Gap: When to Use Rigid-Flex Instead of Flex & Connector
Discover when a rigid-flex PCB is a better choice than a separate flex circuit and connector, especially for designs requiring compact packaging, repeated motion or high reliability. The article emphasizes that although rigid-flex needs more upfront planning and fabrication collaboration, it often pays off in simpler assemblies and improved performance.
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Bridging Mechanical and Electrical Teams for Smarter Automotive Design
As vehicles evolve into advanced electronic systems, the separation between electrical and mechanical design teams becomes a critical bottleneck. This article explores how synchronized ECAD–MCAD workflows help automotive projects move faster, reduce rework and maintain design integrity.
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Via Structures: Designing for Reliability, Not Just Density
We all want to pack more into our PCB designs, but the smallest via isn’t always the smartest one. Dive in to learn how picking the right structure can save you headaches down the line.
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How Structural Electronics Enables 3D, Flexible, and Wearable Integration
Structural electronics integrates electronic functionality directly into the physical structure of a product, eliminating the need for traditional circuit boards. This article examines how advances in materials, additive manufacturing, and flexible substrates are enabling compact, 3D, and wearable systems with enhanced performance and design freedom.
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Beyond Traces: Why Soldermask May Be the Critical Factor in Ultra HDI
In ultra-HDI designs, soldermask is no longer a passive coating but a pivotal element that can determine manufacturability. This article explores why mask registration, resolution, and feature tolerances become critical as line spacings shrink below 50 µm.
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Do You Know How to Prevent Voltage Fluctuation?
We invite you to explore the causes of output voltage fluctuation. In this article we provide you insights on how to solve and prevent these issues.
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How to Build Your Own Laser Range Finder
In this article we will show you how to create step by step a digital laser range finder for your own. Everything is based on Raspberry Pi board.
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Nucleo Shields Multi-Board Design
Learn how easy it is to create multi-board projects. This practical project article covers the reasons for breaking larger boards into sub-assemblies and explores the various connection options available between sub-assembly boards.
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Analog Solar Tracker Project
In this article you can learn about light sensors while building an analog solar panel tracking system. This open-source project covers multi-channel design, window comparators, driving motors, and photosensors.
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Concept Phase – Initial CAD Design
We are continuing our journey through the open-source laptop project. This article explains an initialization of CAD design process from the early concept and brainstorming phase.
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Expert Tips for Safely Powering Up Your New PCB for the First Time
In this blog we will show you the strategies to minimize the risk of damage to circuit boards during the initial power-up process.
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High-Speed PCB Design Tips
Essential tips for high-speed PCB designs, and when you need to start being concerned about how and where you route your traces.
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MIDs Make a Comeback as Vertical SMD Modules for Your PCB
If you've ever wanted to mount components vertically, but without the expense of a flex section this article is for you. You can use an MID in your PCB.
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Everything You Need to Know about Conformal Coating
Explore the basics of conformal coating with us. Conformal coating is a protective layer applied to electronic circuits to guard against environmental factors such as moisture and dust.
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Introduction to Open Source Laptop Project
We have started a very exciting journey into the creation of an open source laptop project. This project will be an ongoing one, with our community able interactively participate. By utilizing Altium 365 users will be able to view, comment on, and download design files. This will be a great learning experience for new and experienced PCB designers.
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Mechanical and Electrical Design Come Together With Altium’s MCAD CoDesigner
Electronics designers working in small design houses or in large enterprises often encounter a common set of challenges when interfacing with mechanical designers. Continue reading to learn how you can best interface with your mechanical designer to get your projects out the door fast!
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Ebook: Routing High-Density Interconnects with Reliable Microvias
HDI PCBs take a particular approach to routing interconnects through multiple layers to ensure reliability during fabrication, assembly, and operation. The critical structure that enables this is microvias, which are prone to failure if not designed properly. In this e-book, readers will receive an initial look at the reasons microvia reliability has come into the spotlight and why HDI PCB designers put reliability first when routing through microvias.
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IPC-2221 Calculator for PCB Trace Current and Heating
Aside from impedance and annular ring calculations, one of the other major formulas specified in the IPC 2221 standard relates temperature rise, trace width, and trace current. THere is also the IPC-2152 standard, both include this guidance on designing for thermal reliability, but which standard should we use?
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Stripline Impedance Calculator
Striplines provide some advantages over microstrips as they take advantage of natural shielding and coupling from nearby ground plane layers. Although they tend to experience higher losses due to total confinement in the dielectric, they can be thinner due to the high dielectric constant used in internal layers of a PCB. Use our free impedence calculator to help you determine the correct width needed to hit a target impedance.
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Which Types of Opto-Isolators Are Right For Your Signal?
An optoisolator is a cool electronic device that can be used to pass information between a diode without passing an electrical current. There are many great applications for these, but do you know which one is right for you?
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Properties panel document options in SCH editors
The Properties panel provides access to the properties of documents and objects. The contents of the panel change depending on the active document or the selected object. This blog will quickly go over some of need to know options around the properties panel in the schematic document.
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